austin cubed: the misadventures of building a modern/contemporary/green home in austin, tejas
Mies van der Rohe designed this simple brick home in 1932 and the Lemke's moved in in 1933. This was the last house Mies designed in Germany before moving to the US in 1938. The house is open to the public, but not on the day we passed by. You can view the home from the street but you can also hike a narrow trail around the back to peek into the ample back yard.
I blame covid, but I haven't posted any architectural resolutions since 2020. But here we are, so let's restart this somewhat depressing activity.
First, let's see what I did and did not accomplish from the 2020 list (which is really a near-term wishful bucket rather than resolutions...):
1. finish designing the cabin (and start building it?) [DONE!!!]
After a wee rollercoaster of who-will-be-the-architect decisions the
past few years, I feel good about this resolution since we are 90 to 95
percent there. It's also highly likely we'll start the build this year!
Well, that's not too bad! So, for this next year (or years...):
1. restore and hang them schoolhouse modern lights
This. Might. Be. The. Year.
2. cypress shelves in the kitchen
The
open shelves in the kitchen are great but have too much height and,
therefore, too much unused space. Thinking about installing cypress
sub-shelves to break-up the space (and get more storage!). This would
also carry the cypress from the dining room/penninsula into the kitchen.
3. dance with architecture in palm springs
One of these years we're going to do this...
4. dance with eileen gray
I really want to see E1027 in person.
10. fire "proof" the cabin
11. install snow guards at cabin
a. design our gravestone
Seems
morbid, but with the recent passing of the bride's mother (and our spot
in the New Mexican landscape staked), it seems we need to get this
done.
After a bit of a wait, the modular home a couple doors down was delivered and assembled over the past couple of days. The crew showed up Wednesday evening to set up the crane and then modules appeared on Thursday morning.
The plan, it seems, was to assemble the house in a day, but that was scuttled by the large tree in the backyard that interfered with assembly (although it seemed a lot of things went slower than anticipated due to the weather). A worker said to me, "The weather has really changed in Austin. It didn't used to be so rainy."My response: "Nothing's changed: y'all just showed up on the first rainy days in three years."
The assembly really brought a crowd out, especially once folks got home from their work days.
The place really looks like ass right now, but a driver said that is only takes 30 days from assembly to ready. We'll see.
One driver said the construction (no hauling or craning) cost 1.1 mil while another on Friday said 1.8 mil. The latter seems too high, but who knows?
The design changed a wee bit (perhaps after discovering that they were not in violation of McMansion?) with a full volume over the garage now (which removes the interest of articulation of the original design, but oh well!). The square footage is now 2,872 square feet with the second floor plan as such:
